Overview of activities

Street lighting

STREET LIGHTING
Introduction and background

Street lighting in general, especially in rural areas in formerly disadvantaged urban areas, is old and of poor maintenance. This has inadvertently contributed to an increase in crime levels. One of the contributing factors for the poor maintenance is the high maintenance cost of inefficient, old technologies. Approximately 80% of South African street lighting is of the inefficient Mercury Vapor type.

A pilot was conducted in two formerly disadvantaged areas in Johannesburg (Riverlea) and in Pretoria (Garankuwa). The project implementation was supported by a public education drive highlighting to importance of street lighting to a society.

Objectives

Among others the objectives of the project included:
Implement two projects in the street lighting fraternity, which could be used as showcase; and
Create confidence within South African government and municipalities for energy efficiency measures and investments.
Implementation

A street lighting pilot project was rolled out in Garankuwa and Riverlea. The street lighting infrastructure in both areas was extremely old and very poorly maintained.

Through the project the old street lighting infrastructure in Garankuwa and Riverlea were redesigned. Garankuwa area comprised around 200 km of street, while Riverlea comprised around 35 km of street. Installing additional fittings and replacing the existing ones redesigned these areas. The high-pressure sodium technology was used in this regard.

Results

The project had a number of beneficial spin-offs for the Tshwane and Johannesburg municipalities as well as the communities at large. One of the major spin-offs achieved by the project was on the social front, through a significant contribution on crime reduction in these areas. The introduction of efficient lighting also yielded lower maintenance costs and an improvement of the conditions of the living.